So Long as I have Breath to Give
by OnyxDrake
Summary: Former Sentinel Abelas must find fresh current, and finds his path crossing that of Ilvin Lavellan's. Both must let go of a painful past and find fresh current for their future, and a seemingly hopeless quest to save Solas from himself and prevent the certain destruction of all of Thedas.
1. In the Forest

Chapter 1

Abelas

"She's with child," Rosha said as she settled down next to me on the fallen pillar. Her flame-red hair had mostly escaped its braid, and curled softly around her shoulders to frame her vulpine features.

I returned my gaze to the middle distance, my only motion to place my hands on my thighs. The buckskin of my breeches was pliant and adhered to my palms. I missed my armour, but I had no need of it anymore. It was too heavy to carry with us.

"Are you not happy for her?" Rosha continued.

A swarm of imperials fluttered through the glade, the sunlight sparking off their royal blue wings. I sighed.

"Nelas could have chosen a more opportune time." No. I wasn't jealous of her happiness with Telahmis. I wasn't hard done by that they'd slipped beyond mere friendship into something deeper. Of course I could keep saying that to myself until I half-believed it.

Next to me, Rosha hissed. I'd angered her, and I was well aware that my words would cut her.

"When _is_ there an opportune time, Abelas? It's been what, nearly three years? What else is there? We need to move ahead. _Live_."

I glanced at her long enough to note how flushed her complexion was, how the emerald vallaslin of Mythal stood out in stark relief against her heightened colour. Then I resumed my vigil over the clearing. Just what I was watching for, I couldn't tell. After so many eons of carrying a burden, it was impossible to lay it down, despite the fact that I understood on a profoundly deeper level that my role as Sentinel was over.

"What else is there…" I began, yet I had no words. What I meant to say was quicksilver on my tongue and lips.

The ages weighed down heavily, and part of me was tempted to slip away into the long sleep offered by uthenera. It wasn't so bad, really. And yet … And yet there was reason to be alive, to feel the sun on my face, to walk without the yoke that I'd borne so willingly for so many years. Instead of plunging into the changeable dreams offered by the Fade.

Yet today I found myself once again troubled by that accursed Elvhen's parting words that fateful day.

 _Malas amelin ne halam, Abelas_.

As if the centuries that I'd carried Mythal's favour could be cast off like a serpent sheds its old skin. Barefaced, faithless trickster. Easy for him to speak, always the firebrand, always at the centre, stirring the conflict. And yet, when faced with his treachery, his insouciance made it almost impossible to remain angry with him. Someone else always ended up bearing the brunt of his mistakes. Had his companions known they harboured a wolf in their midst, how would they have reacted? I almost pitied the fools. Like shemlen livestock, easily led to slaughter.

Yet what must it be to live such brief lives, flashes of lightning quickening against the coming storm? Foolish quicklings, little shadows.

"I am happy for them," I said to Rosha, but I doubt she knew that I didn't mean the development between Nelas and Telahmis. Where was Ilvin now? Or those shemlen hangers-on. Solas, as was his wont, had vanished like a stone dropped in a well. We knew that much, because agents of the Inquisition had been poking about this part of the wilds asking after him.

"You don't sound happy."

I sighed, turned to face her. "Tell me, ma falon, what reasons do I have to be happy?"

"If you sit here, day in and day out, brooding, you'll grow a coating of moss and turn to stone," she said, but there was no humour in her voice.

"Perhaps turning to stone would be preferable than this feckless wandering and wondering."

"For a leader you're not doing a particularly good job of it now," she snapped. "More than two years, from ruin to sunken temple to forgotten stronghold, and for what? What are you looking for? A new duty to turn into a burden to give your life meaning?"

I hissed. "I… I don't know."

"It's _gone_ , you know. _All_ that we had. _All_ that was. Our time is done. We should make the best of what we've got. We should live. Move on."

"And what? End up like those shadows flitting about, who have no understanding of their past. Little moths that burn their wings and turn to ash."

Rosha sucked in her breath, her mouth a thin, bloodless line. "You're afraid. That's what. You no longer know what it's like to be alive anymore. So now you want to doom the rest of us too. You suffer from a surfeit of pride because you don't want to 'lower' yourself to be like those who're truly alive. _Duty_ – that's all you talk about, but then you do _nothing_. Nothing!"

I shouted, my anger hot, livid, "Well, go then! Go run in the forest with the little shadows! I'm certainly not stopping you." Creators, she made me furious, because she was right. I didn't want to admit it, but I knew her words for truth. I clenched my fists, ground my teeth to prevent myself from saying more.

All the seasons of silent recriminations from the sad remnants of the Sentinels, but it took my oldest, dearest friend to stand up to me.

And my words had stung her. That much was clear from the way she narrowed her eyes, stiffened her posture. Her sharp features were pinched with intense emotion.

I wasn't sure, but I thought I heard her mutter "Halam sahlin" under her breath as she got up and departed. So, it ended now. She'd come round. There was nowhere to go.

Fuming, I sat until moonrise before I'd calmed myself sufficiently to return to camp. We'd bedded down in yet more ruins – a location that had once been Mythal's shrine. Now the once-majestic pillars were fallen trunks, and what had been a great reflecting pool was nothing more than a shallow depression in the earth where gossamer elfroot grew in profusion. Fig trees strangled and split the masonry with their intrusive, snakelike roots. I'd found but fragments of the luminous mosaics that had once decorated the walls.

I stopped in my tracks.

Most of our tents were gone.

I stared, not quite believing what I saw.

Sathanna and Belamanth were striking their tent, and the latter paused to cast me a glance over his shoulder before he continued rolling up the guy rope.

The empty space next to them was where Rosha's tent had stood, and I was unaccustomed to the nasty, crawling sensation in my belly. Betrayal.

 _Well, go then!_

I hadn't thought my people would do as much.

Midha came to stand next to me, and waited for me to acknowledge his presence with a curt nod.

"Laisa and I will stand by you," he said quietly.

"Ma serannas," I murmured.


	2. The Stones of Skyhold

Chapter 2

Ilvin

How I managed to hold it together through the last of the Exalted Council the Creators alone knew. I recall returning to my quarters after I'd dropped the figurative barrel of gaatlok on top of all the other drama that had gone on unbeknown to the majority there. Leliana had caught me when I'd crumpled, unable to remain standing. Somehow, my companions then conspired to spirit me away during the night – lest the former-Inquisitor be perceived as weak, and therefore a target, Leliana explained to me in the carriage ride back.

Numb, I remained wrapped in blankets, still disbelieving of all that had transpired. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw the damned eluvians, one after the other, and our desperate chase – all for naught, in the end. Over and over again. No end to the mirrors and the horrors that lurked behind their shimmering surfaces.

We'd failed. The Inquisition had failed. _I'd_ failed.

I couldn't utter those words. Let the others celebrate our pushing back the Qunari; there were things I spoke of to no one. I still felt the phantom touch of _his_ lips on mine, the softness of his hand on my cheek. That last caress.

As for the remains of my left arm, I couldn't bear to look at it, let alone touch at the stump with my right hand. I was lop-sided, ungainly, uneven, and despite Solas having removed the Mark, the pain was still there, flaring every so often. Not crippling, not deadly, but it still hurt.

Yet what was worse than losing _him_ yet again, losing my arm, the Mark, the organisation we'd fought so hard for years to build, was my magic.

I'd taken my powers for granted, always whispering to me in my veins, thrumming in my marrow. Fire, that I could call whenever I had a notion to. My constant companion for so many years. Just gone. Like a missing tooth that I probed at – somehow always shocked to discover its absence.

I was content to stare out the window during the return journey, my head pressed against the side of the carriage so that I jolted with every small indentation in the highway as the horses drew us ever onwards. Josie fussed over me, combed my hair and tried to get me to eat chocolate. Leliana aimed to distract me with debriefings, of plans for the dismantling of the Inquisition now that events had been set in motion. Varric told stories of his past exploits, each more outrageous than the last. Every so often, Cullen stuck his head in to inquire after my health, in his own awkward manner. None of this mattered. Their words washed over me, water cascading over rocks.

Where to from here? I knew not. I could not bring myself to care.

 _Live well while time remains._

Yet what was living without the breath of life, that which moved it, which empowered it? I'd given everything, and all had been taken from me. Bare-faced like the day I was born, and broken to boot.

Damn you, Solas.

Only a handful of years before, that he'd grabbed my hand with its pulsing Mark and helped me seal that first breach. If I'd known back then what I knew now… I'd… I'd… I'd have done it all again. That realisation bit deep. I'd have ripped open my shirt myself and bared my neck for the blade to bite once more, deeper this time.

Better to have lived, to have tasted love's poison, even if it killed me.

"Inquisitor?"

I glanced up at Thom, who stood by the carriage door. We had arrived at Skyhold. Somehow the journey of days had blurred. One moment we'd been at Halamshiral, the next here. Time had passed, and yet it mattered not.

"Don't call me that." I tried to straighten, and out of habit tried to push myself upright using my left hand – only to flail about until Leliana steadied me.

"Don't!" I snapped at her. "I can manage."

Dizziness assailed me as I stepped out of the carriage and into the courtyard, and though my companions hovered, they respected my command to leave well enough alone. There was no sense of homecoming. When I'd left, the very stones had felt as if they protected me – _his_ last gift to me, to keep me safe. Now Skyhold fell under the joint jurisdiction of the Chantry and Ferelden's support. Inquisition no longer. By summer's end, I'd have to vacate the premises. Home no longer.

The whispers and stares followed me as I climbed the stairs, Josie at my side nattering brightly about plans as if none of this was an issue. Always damnable plans, and interviews, and communiqués that had to be signed off.

"This can wait, Josie," I said to her when we paused on the first landing. My breath wheezed in my lungs and my chest hurt. "I'd like some time to myself before… Well, before everything else." I tried to keep my tone light, but a slight edge of bitterness crept through.

The small frown playing in the centre of her forehead told me that she wanted to inquire if we shouldn't ask Cullen to help me the rest of the way, but she knew better than to voice her concerns.

The chill mountain air helped revive me somewhat, and I climbed the rest of the way and went directly to my quarters. Shayandra had already drawn a bath for me, and laid out clothing – soft leggings and tunic in forest green, which only served to remind me of the Free Marches and yet another home that was lost to me.

By the time I exited the bathroom, finger combing my hair – still odd lengths from the awful haircut I'd forced Sera to give me – food had been brought up and the fire had been stoked in the hearth.

Yet I couldn't sit, couldn't eat. The wine had been watered, but I still had a half-bottle of Denerim Old Red blend from before that hadn't turned to vinegar during my absence. Amazing how quickly one could get drunk after a hot bath while drinking on an empty stomach. The wine was tart, and burned my throat on the way down, but it settled nicely in my stomach and lent the aftertaste of cloves. And it numbed me.

Yet that's also how I ended up on my balcony long after moonrise and crying the first ugly tears I'd managed since … well … since That Thing I Refused to Talk About.

The hard, hot knot of anger and sorrow unfurled in my chest and squeezed my throat, and the tears burnt like acid down my cheeks as the first wracking sobs escaped. I leaned with my forehead against the stone pillars of my balcony and sobbed until I was retching up the wine.

What was the point?

It was over. All of it. Everything.

Even Dorian had to leave, the death of his father drawing him back to Tevinter. Thom was going to join the Grey Wardens for real this time. Cassandra was Divine. Leliana would resume her role as the Left Hand. Bull had his Chargers, and they had taken on an assignment that saw them haring off to Nevarra in a week's time. Cole had vanished back in Halamshiral, as mysteriously as he'd arrived back when we hadn't known we needed him. Varric was heeding Kirkwall's siren call. Vivienne was establishing a new circle. Sera had her Red Jennies. Cullen was the only one who'd remain, who'd continue the role of commander here at Skyhold, which was still an important strategic point

And Ilvin Lavellan had nothing. Was no one.

The uncaring stars above me swam in a haze, and try as I might, I couldn't even focus on the moons. Did _he_ look up at the stars and wonder what had become of me? That he would rather me _die in comfort_ , as he'd put it. Arrogant sod. This was _not_ comfort. My laughter was ragged as I pulled myself up with my right hand and leaned over the edge. Damn you, Solas.

Below, in the courtyard, I could just make out people hurrying along with lanterns. Sentries marched on the walls. What would it be like to tip over the edge, to surrender one last time? This time there'd be no one to save me. Would an eternity really flash before my eyes like in the stories? Would it hurt, just before I hit the flagstones? I closed my eyes, felt the wind cooling my damp cheeks with its icy fingers.

So. Ridiculously. Easy.

"Lily." So much love in those two syllables.

A warm hand on my right wrist.

 _Varric_.

I choked back a sob, tensed. "I can't, Varric."

"Can't what, Lily-love? You're going to catch your death out here. It's cold enough to freeze the dick off a giant."

My sob turned into a laugh. "That was terrible." I turned to look down at him, the small of my back pressed into the reassuring solidity of the banister.

"I'll admit that the turn of phrase is a bit off," the dwarf replied, "but it's the first idiomatic expression that sprang to mind. Now, let's get you inside, all right?"

I didn't ask why he'd come upstairs, and he didn't volunteer any explanation either. It was better that way that I pretended I didn't know he'd been worried, that perhaps he'd been sent by the others to check up on me. I'd allow the illusion to continue.

"Remember that time in the Hissing Wastes when Sera put a sand snake in Solas's bedroll?" Varric said as he helped me to the couch.

Maybe it's true what Keeper Deshanna had told me once upon a time, when Ilvin Lavellan still bore Mythal's slave marks on her face. Laughter reminded us that we were still alive, that the frightening void that awaited us all was held at bay just a little bit more.

And maybe, just maybe, I could let down my guard a little, and let my friends in – the ones who cared, who wanted to help. After all, I had nothing more left to lose, did I?


	3. Too Many Goodbyes

Chapter 3

Ilvin

The official handover happened on a typically blustery summer's day. Late summer my arse. Winter was setting in its fangs early. The leaves on the pear tree near the kitchen were turning yellow and the nights had been especially cold – more so than ordinary, as if Skyhold itself knew that an era was ending. King Alistair had sent a small delegation led by lieutenant Dace Renthorn – a solid, dependable type who to my relief immediately warmed to Cullen. Apparently Dace was Templar trained and had grown up in a village near Cullen's. I should feel relieved for his sake that Cullen's new superior was friendly, but all I felt was hollow.

My quarters had been stripped of all that had marked them as mine; everything, including the Avvar carvings I'd brought with me from the Frostback Basin to the dragontooth beads Dorian had sent me from Minrathous had been packed into crates that had been stashed in the bowels of the mountain fastness because I _still_ didn't know where I wanted to go.

Home. What a novel concept. What a fool I'd been to think of Skyhold as home. I'd been doubly a fool to imagine that an erstwhile Dalish elf would ever set down roots anywhere away from her clan.

I suppose it was only natural that our diminished company found its way to the Herald for one last glorious piss-up. Dorian, Bull, and Cassandra were conspicuous in their absence for obvious reasons, as was Cullen, who was attending some sort of debriefing (or most likely some officers-only piss-up). The official farewell banquet was only taking place the following day, in any case, as we were waiting for some Fereldan nobility to still arrive so things could be even more official-like, as Sera was wont to put it.

We had our usual table near the hearth, and it seemed senseless that in a day or so not one of us would still be here to polish the benches with our rears. Another jarring note was the new bard who didn't quite sing the old songs quite the way I was used to. Varric sat to my right, so close that even if I'd had a functioning left arm, I wouldn't have been able to use it. I'd mastered some sort of one-handed card-holding strategy, but he was quick to help me if I fumbled – which happened often.

I saw how the others winced, glanced away when _that_ happened. But in general, the banter flew about, and a whole lot of "remember whens…" and "whatever happened afters…" My cup was never empty.

We laughed until we wept, and even then, I wasn't entirely certain that some of the tears of laughter weren't indeed also mingled with tears of sadness. That giant fist of inevitability would smash down soon enough.

"Have you decided yet, Quizzy?" Sera asked. "Y'know it'd be fun like if you an' me like…" She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"Val Royeaux really doesn't feature high on my 'to do' list right now," I said. We'd had this conversation before.

"You just going to saddle up your hart and suck off into the funset, yeah?" she asked.

I offered a one-shouldered shrug. "Meh. I don't know. I'll figure it out."

Josie put down her glass of dessert wine, her expression horrified. "Oh, I'm so sorry!"

"What?" I asked, genuinely puzzled.

"I've thought of everything but I haven't actually helped you with any travel arrangements."

"Josie, it's fine." I held up a hand. "We're all under enough stress as it is. You've helped by arranging a safe place for me to store my things. Your days of running after me with your pen and paper are now almost over."

She shook her head, and half-rose. "No, no, no –"

"Josie." I allowed some of the erstwhile Inquisitor to creep into my voice, and she shut her mouth with an audible snap and settled.

"Besides," drawled Varric. "Lily's coming with me to Kirkwall."

It was my turn to shoot the dwarf a venomous glare. "I don't remem –"

"Last night." He nudged me.

"I was in no state to make any –"

Varric raised one brow but there was a flintiness in his gaze that had me hesitate. _Not now,_ that look said.

Truth be told, we'd discussed many things the night before and well into the wee hours, and had been in such a state of inebriation, I hadn't been completely sure what was agreed upon. Had I said I'd accompany him to Kirkwall? Creators…

It was easier for me to go along with what the others wanted to do, which included several rowdy rounds of diamondback followed by a game Sera had us play that had incomprehensible rules and involved standing up and making ridiculous speeches. Forfeits included downing shots from some unpronounceable Avvar spirit Varric had produced from the Abyss, for all I knew. If I had to describe this debacle of a drinking game later, it would have to have more inventive adjectives. That's all I could say.

Needless to say, I had no idea how I managed to return to my quarters nor how Varric, Sera and I had all managed to fall asleep in a tangled pile of limbs. I woke with the daylight stabbing me all the way to the back of my skull and the taste of day-old sun-roasted carrion at the back of my throat.

"The fuck…" I croaked. At least we still had on all our clothing, so nothing untoward had happened. Thank the Creators for small mercies.

Sera continued snoring, her arm draped over my hips, pinning me down. Varric had fallen asleep with his head on my legs, but he managed to crack open an eye as I sat up.

"Morning, sunshine," he mumbled.

"How –" I made the mistake of moving my head too quickly, and lancing pain like a Reaver's blade wedged itself deep into my skull. "Ugh."

"Does it matter?" He groaned as he sat up. Some time during the night, his hair tie had gone missing, and his reddish-blond hair was horribly mussed. If Cassandra could see him now... I suppressed a snort then immediately regretted making the sound.

"Thoroughly undignified," I whispered.

"Well, you may as well go out with a bang." He got up off the bed and stumbled to the decanter that had the good peach brandy.

"You're not going to drink more, are you?" I asked, horrified.

"Hair of the dog." He poured two glasses then sauntered back.

"I need water. Actually… I think I'm still drunk."

He handed me a snifter. Sera muttered, and squeezed herself up tighter to me.

I sipped carefully and almost wished I hadn't. But I forced the liquid down. Might as well work on the next hangover at this rate. We still had the banquet this evening.

"It feels strange," I said to him. "Not having all that …"

"Responsibility?"

Gingerly I shook my head then nodded, not quite sure how to answer. Guilt nagged. I was running away from the truth, from the sands running out of the hourglass. _Solas_.

"Lily-love, we've gone over this before. You don't need to beat yourself up over this. You've given enough."

"Who're you to judge?" I asked, unable to prevent the trace of bitterness.

His sigh belonged to a man who'd carried a heavy burden for years. "I've seen enough shit to know."

"And you'd look out for the one whose choice it was to let your best friend die in the Fade," I said.

"Lily," he warned. "You don't need to bring that up."

"But it's true. We keep _not_ talking about Hawke, Varric."

His face crumpled for a moment but then he got a grip on his composure. "We're not going to bring Hawke into this. She's gone."

"I'm _not_ Hawke."

He hissed, and for a moment it looked like he was going to crush the glass in his hand. "I _know_ that."

"If you think by protecting me, you're making up for the fact that –"

"No!" He nearly roared that word.

Sera let go of me and burrowed under the blankets. "Will ya just pipe down a bit?"

"This is a shit conversation," I said and rose on unsteady legs, which wasn't helped by the fact that I bashed my stump on the bedside table.

For a blinding instant my world dissolved into white-hot pain, and all I could do was double over and clutch the affected limb. There. Undeniable. The knob of bone covered by thin flesh. I hated it. Hated _him_ for taking my arm, my Mark and my magic, even if it meant saving my life for the short while so that I could apparently live in _comfort_ , the bastard.

Tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes as I cradled my arm and moaned. Dimly, I was aware of Varric hugging me to him, the solidity of the dwarf grounding me. Tears of pain dissolved into tears of sadness, of the heaviness that wouldn't leave.

"I'm. Not. Coming with you. To. Kirkwall."

"Hush now." He rocked me as if I were the child, and if I were entirely honest with myself, it felt so damned good that I could let someone take care of me.

"Remember that time in the Emerald Graves when we were at that cursed chateau? The creepy one with the stuffed dragon and the endless walking dead?"

I nodded, gripped his shirt (and possibly a quantity of chest hair) hard with my right hand. To give Varric credit, he didn't so much as wince.

"Remember when we raided the pantry. It was too late for us to still head back to camp. You weren't talking to _him_. It was after he removed your markings. You were so sad because he'd stayed back in Skyhold. So it was just you, me, Sera and Black – Sorry. Thom. And we were making oaths. And you said you promised you'd come visit me in Kirkwall, so that I could show you all those places in my stories."

I relaxed into his embrace, breathed deeply. "I remember." That had been a good time. Just before everything had turned to shit again.

"Let it not be said that Ilvin Lavellan is not a woman of her word," Varric said. "Just come as far as Kirkwall. You'll be close to your clan after that. I can help set you up so you can go see them. Do that much for me. That's all I ask. Besides…" He gave a quiet snigger. "Someone's gotta approve the first draft of my next novel."

I groaned. "Varric… Do I even want to know what you've written?"

#

We left during the early hours, the morning after the banquet and despite the fact that both Varric and I had steadfastly remained in a sozzled state the entire day (we would, of course regret this later). Now that my mind was made up, I would not stay in Skyhold one moment longer than I had to. Josie, bless her, remained stoic up until the last moment when she flung her arms around me.

"Promise you'll come visit in Antiva," she whispered, her voice thick with tears. "And that you'll write."

Moisture pricked my eyes. "I promise," I whispered back, even though I had no idea whether I'd have the wherewithal to do so.

Sera gifted me with a sloppy kiss. "Miss ya, lady, but I'm not gonna say goodbye, yeah? Goodbyes are for people who're never gonna see each other again, right?"

"Right," I affirmed, though I suspected this was a lie on my part.

Cullen hugged me to him far longer than I'd expected, and his eyes were suspiciously bright in the flickering torchlight. "You look after yourself, Inqui –" He stopped himself in time. "Ilvin."

"You too, Cullen." My throat grew thick, and I had to hug him one more time. Our friendship may have gotten off to a rocky start all those years ago, what with him being ex-Templar, but the past while had changed much. I would miss him. Perhaps in another world, if things had been different…

Once again, I missed the others who were absent, but there was nothing to be done about that. Thom was accompanying us as far as Haven, from where we'd go our separate ways – Varric and I on to Kirkwall and Thom to the Anderfels to finally join the Wardens.

My hart snorted, scraped the ground with his big hooves. He was eager to be off before the sunrise, and so was I.

Author's note:

This chapter ended up getting a wee bit more emotional than I expected, and for that I make no apologies. The breaking up of the "fellowship" so to speak, has always been a source of poignancy for me, and during this trying time, I'd like to think that Varric Tethras would be the friend the former-Inquisitor needed if Dorian weren't there to help (which he would have, if it hadn't been for his father's untimely demise).


	4. The Wine is Bitter

Chapter 4

Ilvin

I wished I could feel as enthusiastic about Kirkwall as Varric did, but when our vessel passed those grim statues and the city was revealed to us, I couldn't help but feel as possibly countless thousands of slaves must have upon viewing Kirkwall for the first time. My heart was oppressed, and shuddered within the fragility of its bony cage.

Despite it being the second time I'd ever sailed, I'd gotten used to the rolling of the deck, and the salt spray in my face. The voyage had been uneventful, and unlike the previous occasion, I'd not fallen prey to seasickness. Yet I couldn't wait to feel solid ground beneath my feet, and my hart, along with the other mounts we'd brought with us, was fractious in his stall below deck.

I should have set him free once we'd reached Redcliffe, just as I should have refused to board the ship that would eventually sail across the Waking Sea.

Varric stood in the prow, hands gripping the railing and his face turned towards the shore. His expression was best described as beatific, and I wished I could share his joy. At best, I planted my feet firmly and clutched my cloak to my chest with my remaining hand. Today my missing limb pained me, and the sea air did help somewhat to ease the heat of my skin.

"You all right there, Lily? You look a little grim," Varric said.

"Just a little seasick," I said.

"You did so well throughout the voyage."

I managed my characteristic one-shouldered shrug. "Elves were never meant for the open water."

"Then you shouldn't take to the high seas with Isabella."

I snorted. "Most assuredly not. I wasn't planning to." We both shared a laugh at that. I'd heard enough about Isabella's escapades to know I'd want to avoid them.

"I can't wait to show you around once we arrive," he said.

"You mean, show me off to all your friends," I replied.

"That as well. It's not every day that I return with a new legend I'm on first-name basis with. If it weren't for you, I'd not have been in the thick of things again."

"And there I thought you did it purely for the love of adventure," I chided.

"That, and financial benefit. Though it would appear that I seem to be tangled in the tail end of some of my older stories."

"Fitting that you should be present to write 'the end' then. And perhaps you should thank Cassandra for the honour of dragging your sorry arse all the way to Ferelden in the first place." I shifted so that I could lean on the railing, somehow managing to clasp the cloak closed and grip the wood through the fabric. I had no desire to accidentally tumble into the ocean. Being fished out would be a most undignified way to make my grand entrance.

"The Maker has a sense of humour," Varric mused.

"I never took you for the pious type, Varric."

He cut a glance in my direction, his expression unreadable, then turned his gaze towards the city once again. "It's good to see they're rebuilding."

"New beginnings, in other words." The view was a jumbled conglomeration. No matter what I'd seen, from the Hissing Wastes to the gilded cupolas of Val Royeaux, I was unprepared for the sheer _mass_ of Kirkwall.

"There is that. Kirkwall has a habit of getting under one's skin. I've missed her."

"You make it sound like a disease." At a distance, I couldn't find much to endear the sprawl of stone structure to me. Parts were missing, like teeth that had been knocked out, and scaffolding was apparent over vast areas – a veritable forest that must have fallen to the woodsman's axe so that the people could embark on reconstruction.

I didn't say to Varric that perhaps it might have been better to raze the whole lot to the ground; it was all going to be destroyed again anyway.

I should tell someone, unburden myself, but for what reason? Events had been set in motion that I was unequipped to deal with. It had been one thing for me to face down Corypheus when I still had my Mark, and somehow even my final battle with the Qunari had seemed possible, even with the damned thing misfiring. And yet, to face down the one who had started this all, who wandered from eluvian to eluvian with the tatters of my heart. I couldn't. Not anymore.

I still saw him in my dreams, always fading at the edges of awareness. Whether this was a quirk of my deepest, darkest desires – with him a shadow, always present, always unobtainable or indeed my erstwhile lover watching over me, I couldn't tell. Nor, if I were entirely honest with myself, did I want to discover the truth. The delicious agony of not knowing either way was in itself better. Or so I could fool myself.

I could pretend that life was continuing, that we could all pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and carry on. Let the Qunari overrun Tevinter, then cast their eye further south. Let Orlais continue to nibble at Ferelden. Let Nevarran nobility plot. Let the dragons breed and spill forth across the skies, breathing ice or fire. None of it mattered.

None of us were truly real, if Solas would have me believe it. We were but fitful facsimiles, to be erased and started afresh. A repetition of what Dorian and I had achieved at Redcliffe, but on a grander scale. It was possible that all we'd achieved was but a wrinkle in time, a possibility ironed out so that the true story could continue.

The signs were visible to those with eyes to see. Even in Kirkwall, with its gradually emptying alienage. Varric quirked a brow at me when I appeared unconcerned that the elves were slipping away. Fools they were, but it was not my part to say anything if they wanted to believe his lie, that he'd restore them to their former glory.

 _What does this supposed "comfort" entail, Solas?_

If I could numb myself with a river of ale, it would still not be enough to know that the end was coming and there was nothing that I could have done to stop it. The blade would fall where it would. What did it matter if it were sooner rather than later?

When I closed my eyes, I still burst out of that final eluvian into a macabre garden of Quanari "sculptures", their faces frozen forever with sightless stone eyes and mouths pulled back in silent snarls.

 _He_ did this.

I could do nothing to stop him; broken thing that I was, I wasn't even sufficient to be wielded anymore. Cast aside.

And yet, all this offset by the past. Was he always the lie, the mask? Trickster.

#

I greeted my first dawn in Kirkwall with a hangover so vicious I could barely stand upright. Yet Varric and I had found ourselves on a Lowtown rooftop accompanied by the elf he kept referring to as Daisy but whom I knew as Merrill from his stories. She was a flighty creature who'd glomped onto me the moment we'd met. I'd grown dizzy from the quantity and frequency of the questions she'd asked – many of quite a personal nature – yet I couldn't say no to her. And, as Varric had predicted, I'd taken a shine to her. Spectacularly so.

So it seemed a natural thing for the three of us to perch on the very edge, our feet dangling over a four-storey plunge to the cobbled streets below. The wine bottle was near empty, our tongues furred, yet the incongruity of our situation was all the more spectacular.

Varric's solidity between us was reassuring as we squinted against the sun's bright disc that had just crested the peaks.

Gulls wheeled about us in the stiff, salt-laden breeze and though I grubbed after the mellowness of our drunkenness, the pleasant buzz was slipping from my fingers. Stories had been shared, the way starving travellers break bread. Stories had come to an end. Another story was just beginning.

Merrill's silvery laugh brought on a sadness. Such innocence, despite the ugliness of reality. _Damn you, Solas_.

"You look pensive, Lily. You can't blame the seasickness now," Varric said.

I took the bottle from him and made a show of peering into it. "If this is what passes for wine in Kirkwall, then there's a real reason why I should feel pensive. This is one step above vinegar, and that's not saying much."

"I've got some wine at my home," Merrill piped up as she removed the offending bottle from my grasp with a slender-fingered hand. "And I can make us breakfast."

The morning after the night before, and I was yet again tempted to tell her the truth of Falon'Din's markings she wore. Twice the words stumbled onto my tongue. Twice they died. What was the point? As Sera would be wont to say, I'd just be killing the joy. So I wore my own mask as I swirled the bitter wine in my mouth, and swallowed back the sourness. There was no point.

And yet…

I held up my hand, imagined that I summoned fire. Nothing came, of course. To the others, it appeared as if I made a pointless gesture to illustrate some nonsense of which we spoke. I masked my continued disappointment with a reminiscence that involved a dragonling setting fire to Varric's coat.

We laughed like we were ten, twenty years younger than what we really were. The moment wouldn't last, and it was then that I realised, poised on that rooftop, that I wouldn't stay long. No matter how Varric tried to fit me into his life, a convenient part of a story neatly edited and typeset into one of his books, my story wasn't ready to be restrained.

"Varric," I said when there was a lull in our conversation. "Have you heard where Clan Lavellan's at recently?"

I had endings of my own to write. I had best hurry before winter came, hadn't I?


	5. Mirrors

Chapter 5

Abelas

We were travelling light, shadows slipping from dell to woody grove to pine-choked ravine in the foothills of the mountains the shemlen called the Frostbacks. The range had many names over the millennia, and there would come a time when the elements had done their work to reduce those lofty peaks to the silt that clogged rivers and turned their waters murky.

Sometimes we encountered signs of old conflict – fragments of rusted axes that had once belonged to darkspawn or shemlen, dropped in caches. Once Laisa dislodged a skull, and the thing clattered down the slope and cracked open against a rock.

Yet I soon stopped counting the ruins. Some were old, mere stubs hardly recognisable as either Elvhen or Tevinter, but many suggested more recent battles. Tragedies must've played out in the empty-eyed stares of cottages whose walls were reduced to loose-packed stones where scorch marks were still apparent in places. Fruit trees, in some instances, sent out fresh growth from blackened stumps. Was this a world in which I wanted to live?

Neither of my companions asked where we were going and, even if they did, I couldn't tell them. We were little better than the Dalish, scavengers who hunted and gathered while they ghosted across the land. How could I explain this fire that drove me ever onwards? It had started when the emissary of Fen'Harel had arrived, barefaced like the trickster himself, and speaking with the lilt of what I'd later learn was an Orlesian accent.

He came bearing an invitation, for us to join the rebellion in the Arlathan forest.

Yet he'd certainly run fast enough when Laisa had set fire to his tunic. Fortunate for him that she had, for if he'd stood there much longer spewing his semi-regurgitated gurn crap about a last elven alliance to push all the shemlen into the ocean, I'd have shattered him with a bolt of lightning myself.

Where did he would call himself Fen'Harel find these sycophants?

Or was I being ornery because he hadn't come in person to invite me, one of the few remaining Elvhen to join his cause? So I could spit at his feet?

Did it matter?

We were headed north, but not to join. Call it idle curiosity tempered with an overly healthy dose of trepidation. One had to know one's enemy, because the last time Fen'Harel had tried to make things better, he'd nearly destroyed everything in his fit to avenge himself on Mythal's killers. I'd be thrice damned if I didn't do something to prevent the idiot from plunging the remnants of this world into the Abyss as well.

That was the problem. The moment someone with the powers of a god directly concerned himself in people's lives, no matter how good the intentions, things were bound to go tragically wrong. What was stopping a second attempt from being as disastrous as the first?

Every time I felt myself flagging, looked longingly back to the south where the Arbor Wilds had been reduced to a mere smudge on the horizon, I remembered the dream that dogged my steps and haunted each night's rest, and my feet found new purpose. I would find no rest in uthenera until I was done.

#

 _A forest burns up ahead of me, thick smoke contorting into a bronzed sky with the splintering and groaning of collapsing trunks. I walk across a bonefield, shards cutting into my skin so that I leave bloody footprints in my wake. Oddly enough, there is no sensation; my body is dead to me. Numb. I am merely an observer when the shadow draws itself into a fitful presence from the sky, coalescing out of smoke, out of dust._

 _A wolf with a pelt the colour of smoke swarms half the sky, leaps up from the conflagration, its maw open wide as it leaps for the sun. Fangs flash, six red eyes gleam like old blood and the jaws snap shut. All is darkness._

#

Ilvin

"I don't care," said Merrill. "I'm coming with you."

"I'm not an invalid!" I struggled to hold back my anger.

"Daisy…" Varric said. "I thought you said you were done with the Dalish."

Her glare could have felled a high dragon. The colour on her cheeks made her vallaslin stand out hectically. She huffed and tucked a strand of dark hair behind an ear.

Varric held up his hands. "All right, all right. I know when to drag my sorry bones out of this conversation."

I sighed, drew little wet hearts with spilled ale on the scarred tabletop. We sat in a booth in the New Hanged Man, mostly anonymous but for that fact that we got stared at by most newcomers. Varric, I understood, was something of a celebrity here, as was Merrill, and though I'd not been identified as anyone else but Lily, thankfully, I could almost smell the pitch burning as folks tried to figure out who _I_ was. Surely I must be someone of import, if the three of us had been nigh on inseparable these past few weeks.

"He's right, you know," I told her.

Merrill scowled at me. "I'm not harmless. Don't either of you forget that. I can look out for myself and, besides, I've a reason to go out."

Varric raised a brow.

I tried not to look dubious. While I hadn't been filled in on the details, I was aware that something terrible had happened to Merrill's clan many years ago and that she more than dabbled in blood magic.

"Reasons…" I said.

She gave a small shrug then leaned forward. "The mirrors," she whispered.

"Oh no, Daisy, no." Varric pulled back and half rose from his seat.

"The eluvians?" I murmured. My right palm grew sweaty where I gripped the table's edge all of a sudden. A phantom flare flashed along my left arm and I swore my missing fingers flexed. "They're no longer under our control." For a second I swore I heard the whisperings of the Well, but that may just have been the blood rushing to my head.

"I know," Merrill said, cunning shadowing her face. "But there's a rumour that someone's been _tampering_ with the network."

"Are you trying to say what I think it is you're saying?" Varric said. "I swore off those things at Halamshiral…"

"There was this elf who came to speak to me about … well … you know, I was very polite and said that I was quite busy but he was welcome to visit. Such pretty eyes. He had a nice smile too. Told me that he grew up in Denerim but spent time with a mercenary band that went to the Anderfels and –"

Neither Varric nor I had said anything, but I suspect our expressions were ample.

"Oh." She put a hand in front of her mouth.

"The mirrors," I reminded her.

"Yes. Well, Lareth stopped by for tea the other day and he said that they'd lost contact with a patrol round about a particular area up north. And the way he'd talked about the place in a roundabout way makes me think that they have an eluvian there. And it's possibly a day or three's ride near to where Clan Lavellan is _possibly_ overwintering. Or so I've heard it rumoured when I asked around." She finished that last bit in a rush and gazed at both of us so plaintively I had to turn my face towards the table next to ours, where three men were playing a loud game of wicked grace.

My heart tugged painfully. A working eluvian. Somehow I could find _him_.

And then what? _He_ hadn't wanted me the last, fateful time either.

 _Sometimes terrible choices are all that remain_.

Varric, as if knowing what was on my mind, reached out and placed a restraining hand on my wrist. The slight shake of his head was enough to make me bite the inside of my cheek.

"I guess I can pull in a few favours from the viscount to see that you get there safely. _Both_ of you." Varric sighed deeply. We'd already discussed at length that he would not be accompanying me. I'd also bet that he was silently cheering that Merrill _had_ insisted on tagging along, which meant I'd have someone to protect me when I was out of Bianca's range.

I nearly laughed then. How _had_ I thought to look after myself all on my own? I _hadn't_ , that was the thing, and that gut-wrenching realisation stabbed deeply. All these years I'd always had someone at my back that I'd not given any thought to my own defence.

There was a little bit too much smug in the slight twist of a grin that Varric slipped me.

Merrill gave a small squeak of joy. "I'll be on my best behaviour, I promise! They won't even know I was _that_ elf."

"I have a bad feeling about this," I said, but the words had no force to them. So far as I was concerned, I'd already survived the worst that life could throw at me.


	6. Journey by Sea

Chapter 6

 _Ilvin_

I doubted the wisdom of my decision to seek out Clan Lavellan within a day. This wasn't Merrill's fault; if not for her, the silence would have driven me mad. It was just that I hadn't realised how the big, open sky would have me glancing constantly up, as if a high dragon were about to swoop down spewing ice or fire. This sense of impending doom hadn't been as bad when we'd had company riding down to Redcliffe, and when we'd been sailing to Kirkwall, there'd been the wind shaking the sails and water slapping against the hull. Not to mention Varric's stories told in his honeyed drawl. Oh gods I missed the fucking dwarf.

I should have invited him along yet now, after all these years that he was finally home, I couldn't expect him to uproot himself for me yet again.

Yet I couldn't complain that I didn't feel better for leaving the confines of the city. Varric had begged that we consider booking passage on a merchanter bound for Ostwick, but the mere thought of setting foot on any ship had me shudder with cold dread. Besides, it was unfair to my hart.

Garalen snorted, shook his great, antlered head, and I could feel from the way his muscles bunched beneath me that he was eager to be off. I had to keep him on a tight rein so that Merrill's bay gelding could match our pace.

"You should be riding a halla," I told her. "Then we could make good time."

Her laughter was merry. "Perhaps then I should have armour of ironbark and a staff of silverite, and I should have a wolf companion at my heel so I can be fierce like the Emerald Knights."

I smiled, trying to visualise the diminutive elf riding into battle but all I could think of were the barrel-vaulted tomb I'd once explored, standing empty and lost in a forest of graves. Back when Solas had promised that he'd explain why he couldn't … And he never had.

"All would quail at your sight and turn around and flee lest you smite them with your wrath." My words trembled with unshed tears.

"I think," said Merrill, "you've been spending too much time with Varric."

"Though any who would misjudge you due to your delicate stature would have much to repent." _Come on, Ilvin. Be merry. Talk shit like Varric and maybe the shadows will stay away._

"All the better to guard m'lady," she said with a wink.

My smile fled at the thought that I relied almost wholly on Merrill now for my safety. Indeed, I relied heavily on her for many things, like brushing out my hair (she refused to allow me to finger comb my unruly thatch that wasn't quite a bob anymore), fastening the laces of my clothing, cooking, setting up our shelter whenever we slept under the stars. We fell into a peculiar rhythm, each anticipating the movements of the other without having to discuss smaller details. Unconsciously, she'd sweeten my tea with a small chunk of crystallised honey, and I'd know to pass her the plates when she was ready to dish.

Her entire demeanour was sweet – almost painfully so – and it was difficult to imagine that she was a mistress of blood magic.

Solas had been the one to convince me that blood magic was just a tool in the hands of the user, but his assurances rang hollow now in the wake of all that had transpired. What else had he omitted, if not downright lied about?

Oh, just that he was the Dread Wolf, nothing much. Just the betrayer of our people, the one who'd locked our gods away, only they were never truly the benevolent entities some of our Keepers had been wont to tell us. No, to them we'd been chattel, to be marked as possessions. Toys or tools.

We made camp that evening by a stand of stunted pines on the foothills of the Vimmarks. I breathed in their fresh resin and tried to recall the ghost of my missing magic. Absent like half my left arm. Just gone. Like probing at a lost tooth.

Focus on the bigger picture rather. The sea curved near the horizon, cobalt in the dying light, and a bitter wind whistled from the peaks that still carried last winter's snow. Our route meandered along the coast – I wasn't prepared to dare the pass this late in the season. In any case, Varric couldn't guarantee our safety and I didn't want to lean on my reputation as the erstwhile Inquisitor for protection. I could. But then all hope of anonymity would be fled.

And here we crouched, Merrill and I, hunched by our small fire that didn't quite chase away the evening chill while we waited for the billy to boil. It was almost like old times – woodsmoke and ash. Or what I could remember the old times. They all bled into each other. Varric would be polishing his damned crossbow spinning his tall tales while Bull sharpened his axe. My heart still constricted when I thought about Bull, how he'd turned on me and called me _bas_. As if I were a mere thing, to be ground beneath a boot. How it felt to end him, someone I'd once named friend. It was like I dug the dagger into my own heart.

My whole life so far spent trying to what was right, but for each decision came a reaction. My attempts to keep peace with the Qunari had failed, along with my mission to protect Thedas. How much longer now before it all came crashing down? Now that I knew what Solas intended, and I did nothing, but embark on a nostalgic wandering.

I darted a glance at Merrill, who hummed some Dalish lovers' song while she measured tea leaves into sieves.

She paused, raised a brow. "You look so sad, Lily."

"I'm remembering."

She sighed, and fine lines creased the corners of her eyes. "Aye. But hopefully the good times."

"Yes, but they are tempered by the … not so good things."

"I find holding onto the good things better. They are like pretty pebbles that you pick up by the river, all tumbled and polished, and I can take them out and look at them any time I want to."

"I can't help but take out the not so pretty ones," I added. "Things were so much simpler in the beginning. We used to camp like this, you know. Before the Inquisition became this heavy, cumbersome thing that sprawled across Thedas like one of those octopi Josie was always trying to get me to eat."

"Octopuses," Merrill said abently. "I think they are octopuses … octopi."

"Never mind them. They're horrible, squirmy things. I saw one in a rock pool off the Storm Coast once and it gave me the creeps."

"I think I know what you mean, Lily-love. When I first… When I first met Hawke and came to Kirkwall, it all seemed so simple. We'd go on our little missions and afterwards we would just… Be ourselves. Talking. Laughing. Going out to see performers. I mean things weren't all moondrops and crystal graces but we got by." She pressed her palm to her collarbone. "And I was going to do all I could to help my people." Merrill's gaze went distant with memories. "Even if they were ungrateful. Even if it was all futile." A small, bitter twitch of a smile danced on her lips. "Here I am still. Knowing what I do now, I am sorry I broke that eluvian. I could have helped."

"You couldn't have known," I said. "Besides…" I didn't want to say it. What would _he_ have done to Merrill if she didn't relinquish control of her cursed eluvian. Faint whispers stirred and I tamped down the voices of the Well. No. Not now. My pulse sped up. How many months without a peep? Not now. Please dear gods not now.

Merrill's face was pressed close to mine and I jerked back with a startled oath.

"Lily? You kinda went blank on me there. Are you all right? You're all pale."

I brought a shaking hand to my forehead and my fingers came away damp. I shook my head. "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine"

"It's nothing. I'm just tired."

So I rested, and if she doted on me a little more than usual, I didn't remark on it. We still had a long way to travel, and when I slept, a threnody of whispers just at the edge of my senses reached out to drag me into nightmares where a wolf swallowed the sun and the rivers ran scarlet.

#

 _Abelas_

We made an odd trio there at the Highever docks, yet there was nothing for it but to book passage across the sea. It was either that or go by foot, and the dreams were becoming pressing urgent at night. The moons, bathed in blood. The sky tearing yet again and thousands of spirits swarming through. Hungry. Aching. My companions would shake me awake the moment my tossing and turning, and murmured cries, became too much for them. Which were keeping them from their rest.

The insides of my cheeks were raw.

Now we stood wrapped in cloaks, attempting to pass as city elves with our hoods pulled low to hide Mythal's vallaslin. Perhaps it was because we stood taller than other lesser brethren or something in our stance that didn't speak of subjugation – but the shemlen gave us a wide berth. It was an Antivan sea captain who accepted our coin, and I couldn't help but wince seeing how the currency dwindled from the fine dagger I'd parted with so that we might travel.

The merchant a few towns back had no idea that she would never see its like again. That she'd had the gall to even suggest that it was an imitation of fine Elvhen work then ask where we'd stolen it. Frost had started forming at the tips of my fingers before Laisa rested a restraining hand on my forearm.

She'd shaken her head, ever so slightly. _No, Abelas_.

The sense that we were running out of time goaded me, made me press onward – even if it meant rubbing shoulders with the quicklings. I'd throttle the Dread Wolf himself with my bare hands if I had to. Perhaps I should have accepted the invitation and had gone in biddable and meek, pretending subservience. But that was not my way.

The dark-eyed Antivan sea captain wore a scandalously short tunic and high boots – garb that left little to the imagination. Mercifully she left us alone once she realised her jokes fell flat. We kept to the cabin we'd been assigned – no more than a closet, really, with four bunks more like shelves one would use to store vittles than space to sleep. Small signs told me that whichever crew members had called this their sleeping quarters had hastily vacated it upon our arrival – a small twist of cord with beads discarded in a corner, a scrap of paper pinned to the door held the likeness of a sad-eyed woman. The shemlen stench was imbued in everything – sour to our senses. The ocean was restless beneath the vessel that bucked like a spooked hart over every swell.

Yet this was preferable to walking, I had to remind myself. Keep reminding myself as the queasiness of seasickness twisted my stomach. My companions made soothing sounds like they would for a frightened halla and held the bucket for me. A cool cloth was pressed to my forehead. How undignified. But the sea route saved time. Of course it saved time. And of course fate would have it that I was the one to suffer illness while my companions remained unaffected.

I thought I detected a ghost of a smile on Laisa's lips. Midha merely sharpened his daggers, the whetstone's rasping providing a counterpoint to the slow dip and weave of our progress.

A day and a half felt more like an aeon, and my legs threatened to buckle beneath me the moment we made landfall.

The fishing village was so small it had no name. Mountains the shemlen referred to as the Vimmarks, though they had many other, older names long forgotten, formed a barrier to the north. The frowning, snow-dusted heights tinged with a blue haze and even at this distance, I could discern the occasional isolated farmsteads on their flanks. Time was when this had all been forest.

The people who lived here were a surly lot, their stares bold and unfriendly as we made our way across the quay's slippery planking. Gulls wheeled and scolded in the chill air, and each step away from that hellish ship returned some of the strength to my limbs.

"What now?" Midha said quietly. He shivered in his cloak, unaccustomed to the sea breeze.

"Supplies, then we get on with it."

"Should find out if the passes are open," Laisa said.

"Do that, and meet me at that piss-poor excuse of a tavern," I added, and the two peeled off to execute their tasks.

The ale served in the tavern was more water than anything else, and like the rest of the village, offered the distinct impression of fish. Yet I went here to find a corner, hood drawn low so I could listen to the talk, as much as the thought of rubbing shoulders with the filthy shemlen irked me.

They might not wish to serve me, but they took my coin without any quibble. The fare was plain but wholesome – fish, fried bread and some sort of onion preserve.

The novelty of my arrival soon wore off, and the half-dozen locals present went back to their murmur of conversation as if I wasn't even there. They discussed the weather, the deplorable state of their fishing, how Kirkwall was shoving its nose in their affairs.

Smuggling, I surmised. This entire nameless village was possibly up to its gills in smuggling. I tried to hide my slight smirk.

By the time Laisa had slid into a seat next to me, and the serving wench had brought her a meal, I'd heard all about how the Inquisition had been disbanded.

"Good riddance to the knife-ear bitch," one man said.

Laisa and I traded a raised eyebrow.

"She wasn't that bad a sort," she said to me quietly, so that the shemlen couldn't hear. "She meant well."

"A bit naive," I said.

"She bears Mythal's mark."

I shrugged at that and turned over the woman's heart-shaped face in my memory. A slight, flame-haired vixen she was, and a mage too. I doubt she'd fully appreciated the staff she'd carried – an ancient artefact I'd once seen in the hands of a servant of Dirthamen.

"Young and foolish," I murmured into the dregs of my ale. "I wouldn't be surprised if the voices of the Vir'Abelasan haven't driven her to utter madness by now."

Laisa frowned. "She had a point, you know."

"It's all dross anyway," I countered.

"You haven't stopped caring what happens, though."

I glared at her so hard she was the first to break eye contact.


	7. Aravels Among the Silver Birches

Chapter 7

 _Ilvin_

We saw the red sails of the aravels long before we glimpsed halla browsing among the silver birches. Clan Lavellan's hunters knew we were here, yet they only chose to reveal themselves once it was clear our route was not deviating. My clan had camped here before, in a glen nestled between two towering peaks, where the burn washed down icy crystal waters during spring and where the cuckoo called for her mate when summer's touch was still light on the land.

This was a good place, with fond memories. Of youngsters playing hunter-and-halla among the trees, and the fruit of sweet brambles during the fall that stained our mouths black.

Merrill reined in her mount so that I too stopped. We held each other's gazes.

"You'll be fine," she said, her smile tight.

I nodded, my throat thick, and reached out to clasp her hand when she offered it. Her fingers were light and cool on mine, her grip firm. Then I pulled my hood down more firmly, to hide my bare-faced shame. For now.

Movement in the undergrowth, at least half a dozen hunters—whom I was aware of.

The man who stepped out in front of us was one I didn't recognise and by his expression, it was clear he didn't know who I was either. He wore June's vallaslin picked out in burgundy lines, and his silvery hair braided back in a tight queue. An arrow was nocked, pointed at my chest, and my skin prickled with the sense of other missiles similarly aimed.

An icy wash of honest fear had me freeze, and Garalen, clearly picking up on my emotions, snorted and shook his great head. Those big hooves shuddered into the ground. If I gave the command, my hart would rear and do what he'd been trained to do, and both Merrill and I would be elven pincushions within less than a heartbeat.

"Peace, my friend," Merrill said.

"Identify yourselves. What do you seek in Clan Lavellan's territory?" The hunter didn't relax his stance.

Three others melted out of the undergrowth to either side of him. The prickling of small hairs on my nape warned me that others stood behind us, weapons ready.

"I must apologise, _lethallin_ , but our visit is unexpected," Merrill continued as if we were not about to be skewered.

The man huffed, as if he were about to protest that he was not our friend and that Merrill was being highly inappropriate to be on such familiar terms with him.

 _Now or never_.

I let go of the reins and pulled back my hood. "Do you not recognise your former First, the former Inquisitor Ilvin Lavellan?"

I hated doing this, despised pulling rank, and leaning on my past designations—and the filthy shemlen connection—but the moment called for it.

A collective babble arose around us as others broke rank, stepped out from the underbrush and from behind rocks.

The hunter scowled at us but only put down his bow when another hunter placed a hand on his wrist. This one I _did_ recognise.

"Leanos?" I queried.

He peered up at me, his features leaner perhaps, the dark red hair pulled back in a tight warrior's braid, but there wasn't a hint of a smile or any of the affection we'd once shared. That flat look sent a blade straight to my heart.

He was studying me, judging my bare face and finding me wanting.

" _Former_ Inquisitor," he said by way of greeting—the kind of tone one would reserve for shemlen. (I _deserved_ this.) "You and your companion wait here while we consult with our keeper."

They withdrew then, but I was certain some fingers were twitchy on bows, arrows clasped loosely while we were regarded.

"Not exactly a warm welcome," Merrill said to me. The smile that twitched to her lips was tight, nearly a grimace.

"Truth be told, I never really expected one."

 _Then why did you come?_ I accused myself.

"Well, we're here now. May as well make the best of it. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I'd been able to visit my people…"

I tried to imagine how it would've been for her, stuck in the Kirkwall alienage on her own after being cast out by her clan. Thank the gods she'd had Varric and the others. The glares of my former clan stilled my tongue. Funny how over the year I'd clung to that name—Lavellan—as if it would prevent me from vanishing and yet here, now, I was not deemed worthy of calling it my own.

 _Who are you now that everything has been stripped away?_

Solas had known, had in his own way wanted to keep me safe, and I'd spurned his good intentions. If I'd kept the Inquisition (and at the time it had been within my power to do so) I'd have had the resources to hunt him down, to stop this plunge into destruction. Did he welcome the hunt?

The voices of the Virabelas'san were no help now. Their continued silence made me wonder if even Mythal had turned her face from me.

Leanos wasn't the one sent to bring us to the Keeper. Perhaps they meant it an insult, for the hunter who came back for us couldn't have been older than sixteen summers. The youth wouldn't make eye contact, and walked ahead of us stiff backed.

"He must've drawn the shortest stick," Merrill whispered at me, most certainly loud enough for the boy to have heard, for the tips of his ears coloured.

I grimaced at her, and she kept silent for the rest of the ride.

There were fewer aravels than I remembered, and their state was pitiful, with scarred woodwork in need of varnish. Arrow marks? Scores from swords? The events that had occurred in and around Wycome all those years ago had taken their toll and the clan was sadly diminished. Fewer halla too, that shook their heads as we passed, and bleated their displeasure at the strangers' arrival. My heart was glad to see their white coats and spiralled horns, but they also served as yet another reminder of all that was lost to me.

When we arrived at the boundary, where two hunters stood sentinel, we dismounted, and a pair of youths came to take our mounts.

I was loath to relinquish the animals, but would not be discourteous. This was as much a matter of Clan Lavellan placing trust in us to behave as we set faith in them not putting arrows in our backs. Merrill squeezed my hand briefly, and even through the glove I could feel the tremble of her tension. This must be hard for her too.

Deshanna stood tall, her hair more white than platinum, perhaps thinner than when I last saw her. The crows' feet around the eyes and marionette lines alongside her lips were new, but out of all of the clan gathered here, her expression was of warmth.

"Andaran atish'an," she said but then she rushed forward to claim me in a fierce hug that belied her slender frame. "Ma da'len! You have arrived far sooner than I expected."

When had my missive arrived? I had sent word with one of Leliana's agents weeks before.

"Keeper," I murmured into her hair, which was scented with wildflower and took me back to my childhood. "It has been too long."

 _Deshanna stands for a while, watching me ride away. I know this, because I keep looking over my shoulder at the aravels, in order to trap a last vision of the red sails before the grove of poplars claims them. It is a long journey to the shemlen conclave. I don't want to forget the woman who has been as mother to me for all these years._

We embraced long enough for the moment to verge on awkwardness. Then she pulled back, clasping my elbows. Her brows knit in concern, quickly followed by sorrow as she noticed the stump.

"This is a grievous injury. Why did you not say anything in your letters? When did this happen?" She searched my face, and reached out to trace where Mythal's slave marks once marred my skin. Mercifully she said nothing about the missing vallaslin. Yet.

My throat closed at the mention of my missing arm, and I shook my head. "It is not something I wished to lay down in written word."

The ghost of _his_ magic ached in marrow no longer there, and I bit the inside of my cheek to prevent the pain from showing on my features.

"Ah. I understand." Her focus shifted to Merrill. "And this?"

"Merrill, formerly of Sabrae Clan, Keeper." Merrill kept her gaze downcast, but her cheeks and the tips of her ears were flushed. She had spoken only so that Deshanna could hear.

If the mention of Merrill's outcast status meant anything to Deshanna, she did not let on. Nor did she inquire _which_ clan Merrill was affiliated with now. As I knew Deshanna, this was something she'd choose not to discuss further if she knew, or it would be a topic skirted around discreetly until it was appropriate to chew at it.

"Be welcome, both of you," she said with a tight smile. "You must be exhausted, and famished." The keeper beckoned us into her aravel.

The interior was almost claustrophobic and as familiar as all the dreams I'd had over the years that taunted me with all that I had lost. Deshanna's sleeping pallet was rolled up against the side. We were seated upon cushions in the centre, so close to each other our knees touched. An intricate candelabra formed from halla antlers was new, however, as was a peculiar creamy bear pelt that carpeted the floor. My travel-weary feet sank into the softness. The scents of beeswax candles and dried elfroot blanketed my furiously beating heart in calm.

"I'm afraid our hospitality is sadly diminished," Deshanna said as she prodded at the embers in the pot-belly stove. "This is not a good time for the clan."

"I am sorry to hear this," I said. "If I had only offered further aid after Wycome..."

"Pah!" She pressed held up a hand. "We came through _that_ far better than I expected. It's _recently."_

"How so?" asked Merrill.

"The clan is divided," Deshanna said, "among its own. There is talk of a rebellion, and those who are malcontent depart every other day."

A chill shadow clenched my heart. "A rebellion."

"Yes. I suspect you know full well of what I speak. It's touching the clans too. Not just the alienages. There are those among us who are restless of spirit. The old ways are no longer good enough for them, they say." Deshanna spoke without rancour; only defeat.

Merrill puffed out a small gasp of dismay. "No good will come of this. It will be like every other time."

"The Qunari becomes ever restless," I added. "What I averted at the Halamshiral was but a small taste."

"We also hear some of the reports of the conflict in Tevinter," Deshanna said. "And I'm afraid that it is like a canker, spreading. But then you'd know this already too."

I shook my head. "I must admit that I've been trying to push the bad news reports aside."

Merrill reached out to clasp my right hand. She did not let go, and I squeezed back my affirmation that I appreciated the contact.

"If you had not given up your Inquisition," Deshanna started.

"Not _my_ Inquisition," I retorted with more sharpness than I had intended. "It was finished, _over_. We were _riddled_ with spies. Cumbersome. Growing imbalanced within southern Thedas." I didn't say that I had felt our purpose spent, especially in the face of Fen'Harel's implacable power.

 _A silent, stone army of Qunari still stands in lost Elvhen ruins_. _Stone eyes forever gazing into eternity._

I shuddered at the power I'd witnessed. _He_ would not be stopped. How could I prevail against him without my mark? _His_ mark, that he had taken back.

"But you could have been a force for some good."

I gave a sharp, humourless bark of laughter. "And all those times that you wrote to warn me of these flat-ears, hahren. How you have changed your tune."

"I am not so set in the ways of our people that I can't see where change may be of benefit, da'len. Even if some of those changes that have been wrought pierce me to my heart."

She gazed at my face with meaning, and I let go of Merrill's hand so that I could touch the places where Mythal's vallaslin once marked my face in verdant tones. _Bare-faced shem._

"Why?" she asked.

Dare I tell her?

I had told no one. Not even Merrill. Who'd believe me, anyway? Not the shemlen, not the People. The first response of any who held deep-rooted beliefs was denial, and on its heels soon followed obstinate defence of those incorrect beliefs, no matter now wrong they were.

I should know. I'd had almost three years to regret that evening in Ghilan'nain's Grove. Some lovers' excursion _that_ had turned out to be. I'd had seasons to turn those words over and over. If I licked my lips, I could still recall the phantom kiss that sealed my fate moments before he took my arm nearly a year ago.

To save me.

To doom Thedas.

The question I still struggled with, in the time that had remained, would I have grown powerful enough to stop him?

"Da'len?" Deshanna's hands were cool against my right hand as she pulled my fingers away from my lips.

Tears hazed my vision, and I sucked in a shaky breath and willed my sorrow down deep. I would not lose my composure again. Not here, not among my former people.

I started. "There is an old, old story that I learnt of back in Halamshiral, when I was chasing my enemy through the eluvians. It's _our_ story, an ancient tale that I don't even think our elders share anymore. It's about our gods, about _us_ , about the fall of our people. A history that has been twisted into a shape that can no longer be recognised."

 _Or he was feeding you one lie after the other_.

I shut my eyes. My chest pained and I struggled to draw breath. The memories seemed unreal, as if they'd happened to someone else. My tongue refused to move, my jaw tight.

"Fen—" I opened my eyes.

Deshanna stared at me, her gaze like that of a frightened halla. Merrill sat absolutely still and straight, her hands clasped tightly to her chest.

My laughter was more the bark of a wounded dog. "Let's just say the Dread Wolf caught my scent. I was betrayed. We all were. And it's all my fault for being the greatest fool to ever walk Thedas."

"You can't say that—" Deshanna started, but she didn't have a chance to finish.

"I had him in my _bed_ , by my _heart_. He called me his _vhenan_ and then he took my mark—our _slave_ marks, he told me. Fen'Harel. Solas first. He became known as the Dread Wolf later. We were slaves. _Slaves_. Our 'gods' were no more than powerful mages, once mortal. And more the fools our ancestors were for putting them up on pedestals to venerate them as being somehow better than us. We were—"

But I couldn't say anymore. It was clear, from the two women's incredulous expressions, that they thought me quite mad, and I hung my head and tugged at my hair in great clumps as though I could rip it out by the roots.

He wanted me to live out the last of my days in comfort, free.

This knowledge, my burden, brought no joy. Shame burnt across my unmarked cheeks and I heaved great sobs that brought no tears.

"Oh, da'len," Deshanna said as she shifted to get closer to me. Though she was thin, her arms still held me with surprising strength. Merrill enfolded us both.

"I don't know what to say," Merrill whispered. "So I'm not going to say anything."

So I spoke. The story spilled from my lips and I emptied it in the closed confines of the aravel. The two women alternated between holding my hand and stroking my hair. They brewed tea. But they let me speak until I was hollowed out and scoured clean. The light outside the woven mat covering the window slits turned to dove's feathers.

When I was finished, I hung my head and waited for the condemnation.

But instead there was silence enough for us to hear the tinkling of the halla bells as the children brought them in. Women called out that supper was ready. Men traded banter about the following day's hunt. Normal, everyday clan sounds of people oblivious to my great unburdening. Of the doom that awaited us.

Their lives had surety, tradition. For now.

Mine was a tragedy. And right now I wished it were over.

"Ilvin Lavellan, look at me," Deshanna said.

I shook my head, drew breath.

"I believe you."

I dared to meet her gaze. "But now what?" I asked. My guilt was rubbed raw, nerves exposed.

"We stop him," Merrill said. "If anyone's an idiot, it's he."

"Do you have any—" I countered.

Deshanna's finger on my lips were cool, firm. "Hush now, Ilvin. Enough. We are to dine tonight with the elders. We will not give in to despair. Your return was supposed to be a joyous occasion, despite what some of our more hidebound people are wont to say about you having let down the clan by rejecting our ways. Rahellan is as querulous as a bogfisher with sore teeth, and I fear _him_ more than I can I do your former paramour. Let's deal with one old wolf at a time, shall we?" She glanced at Merrill, "And whatever possessed _you_ to show face among the People again?"

Merrill squirmed but Deshanna's years appeared to weigh her down more as she gave the younger elf a tired smile then turned to me.

"Things are never simple with you, are they, Ilvin?"


End file.
